Access to the international road haulage market. Recast

The Council held a public policy debate on three legislative proposals that seek to modernise, replace and merge legislation governing road transport operators and access to the road transport markets (see COD/2007/0097 and COD/2007/0098).

Ministers were invited to agree in principle to the outline of the presidency compromise package on the key elements of two of the three proposals.

The Council broadly supported the presidency compromise as a good basis for further work on these proposals and invited Coreper to pursue examination of the outstanding issues with the objective of reaching a political agreement on all these proposals at the Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council in June 2008. The presidency compromise focuses in particular on two main issues, cabotage and national electronic registers.

All delegations expressed their support in principle for the Commission proposal on access to the international road haulage market. Following the work carried out within the Council, some provisions of the Commission's proposal were adapted in order to reach consensus on most parts of the draft regulation. These modifications particularly concern scope and definitions, the format of the Community licence, certified copies and the driver attestation, mutual assistance and penalties, and a list of security features to avoid manipulation and forgery of the Community licence and driver attestation documents.

A majority of delegations supported the presidency compromise on cabotage. This compromise follows the Commission's proposal allowing for up to 3 transport operations consecutive to an international journey within 7 days. In addition, the Commission will be invited to assess, in a report, whether progress in the harmonisation of certain rules (i.e. enforcement and taxation) allows for a further opening of domestic transport markets, including in the field of cabotage.

In addition, several delegations asked to consider the possibility of including in the text additional cabotage operations on the return trip if the lorry takes the shortest route back.